The Meeting at Telgte

This is a remarkable book. Set in Germany in 1647, one year before the end of the Thirty Years’ War, a group of authors, poets, critics and publishers are invited to meet, read and discuss each others’ works and above all to produce an appeal to those political powers seeking peace. A fascinating look at the literary world of 17th century Germany, with reference to the literary society Group 47 created in Germany after the end of the Second World War in 1947, it still has meaning, whether intentional or accidental, for readers in the 21st century.

This was one of the forgotten fare of one of those Grass clusters in the late 1990s. I reread this a few years ago after reading C.V. Wedgwood's history of the Thirty Year War. It is certainly thinner Grass, equating his own Gruppe 47 with the efforts to restore civilization after that bloodbath in the anything but Holy Roman Empire.

If someone is short on time or for other reasons not willing to read Grass’s long novels, he should start with this allegory focussing the encounters of German writers in the fifties, relocated to the period of the Thirty Years War. Consumable in a single day.

Yikes, I tell a lie. I'm not currently reading it, I'm too scared to. I need somebody out there to give me some encouragement. I was thinking of Matt, but I see it's only on your to be done shelf.

I've been reading German literature (etc) from straight after WWII and this seems like I should give it a go, but when I opened it up, I discovered really I had to start at the end with a rather terrifyingly complicated account of the period in which it is set and the people whom the reader will meet.

To be honest, I put it back on my physical to-read-shelf. How to overcome my cowardice?

Yikes, I tell a lie. I'm not currently reading it, I'm too scared to. I need somebody out there to give me some encouragement. I was thinking of Matt, but I see it's only on your to be done shelf.

I've been reading German literature (etc) from straight after WWII and this seems like I should give it a go, but when I opened it up, I discovered really I had to start at the end with a rather terrifyingly complicated account of the period in which it is set and the people whom the reader will meet.

To be honest, I put it back on my physical to-read-shelf. How to overcome my cowardice?

Yikes, I tell a lie. I'm not currently reading it, I'm too scared to. I need somebody out there to give me some encouragement. I was thinking of Matt, but I see it's only on your to be done shelf.

I've been reading German literature (etc) from straight after WWII and this seems like I should give it a go, but when I opened it up, I discovered really I had to start at the end with a rather terrifyingly complicated account of the period in which it is set and the people whom the reader will meet.

To be honest, I put it back on my physical to-read-shelf. How to overcome my cowardice?

"Ieri sarà quel che domani è stato" un incipit che dice che il senso, il fine o anche solo il fluire (razionale) della storia è solo un'illusione, al più una fola ideologica atta a giustificare, nella sedicente razionalità dello sviluppo della civiltà, ogni decisione attuale come "doverosa" conseguenza del passato.
A Telgte nel 1647, alla fine della Guerra dei Trent'anni, come a Berlino nel 1947, alla fine della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, la letteratura riafferma il suo ruolo e la sua capacità di consolidare un popolo ed una nazione attraverso la ricostruzione di una lingua comune condivisa, che è la ricostruzione di un modo di sentire e di convivere civilmente. Allora (Telgte) contro l'insensata guerra infinita tra Spagnoli, show more Svedesi, Francesi e Tedeschi di vario tipo, che si concluse con la polverizzazione del nascente stato in una miriade di principatini, ducatelli e giurisdizioni di natura varia (anche di tipo religioso); trecent'anni dopo per contribuire ad estirpare dal linguaggio comune la prosopopea che il nazismo, come una vera e propria arma, aveva utilizzato per controllare il linguaggio e -quindi- le menti.
In Italia i letterati dell'800 (da Berchet in poi) si coordinarono fortemente, in modo analogo, per contribuire alla nascita del popolo italiano (cosa quasi riuscita -a dire il vero- solo ben più di un secolo dopo).
Questo libro deve moltissimo alla traduzione splendida di Bruna Bianchi, che forgia in italiano una appassionata poesia barocca, novello Metastasio, accompagnando il testo con una sua Nota esplicativa sul senso dii questo "romanzo" e con un glossario, sempre suo, preziosissimo per orientarsi meglio, se -come può capitare- non si fosse esperti di Germanistica e di Poesia tedesca del '600.
Bellissimo. show less